Chancellor’s plans fail to ease the energy, climate and ecological crises

Mini-budget: Chancellor’s plans fail to ease the cost of living crisis, restore nature and cut climate-changing emissions

Responding to the Chancellor’s “vision for a new era for Britain” that he will set out in tomorrow’s mini-budget, Friends of the Earth’s head of policy, Mike Childs, said:

“The Chancellor’s mini-budget is yet another lost opportunity to lay out a plan to insulate the UK’s heat-leaking homes, and scale up cheap, clean onshore renewables so we can cut our use of costly gas and reduce energy bills for good.

“While many people will be relieved that their energy bills won’t be soaring as high as once forecast, around six million people will still be in fuel poverty this winter – almost double the number in 2021.

“What’s also deeply worrying are plans to weaken environmental safeguards. The Chancellor is treating economic growth and environmental protection as mutually exclusive, but they’re not. It’s this tired thinking that is driving the energy, climate and ecological crises we’re facing. We really needed this budget to ease the cost of living emergency, restore nature and cut the emissions that cause climate change, but it totally fails on all counts.”